A tense, high-stakes read with a layered cast.
Samantha Church, recovering alcoholic, ace reporter for Colorado’s Grandview Perspective, and amateur sleuth, searches for her late friend’s lost little sister in the sixth installment of the series.
Sam’s young colleague Hunter was killed in an investigation gone bad. His only remaining family member was his little sister, Jenny, who disappeared years ago. Although Hunter is dead, Sam is obsessed with finding Jenny, and the obvious place to start is El Paso, where Hunter and Jenny were born. The reporter’s new friend, Sandy Petersen, an elementary school teacher, overhears an older fellow say “Hey, look at this, Jenny” to his young companion in a grocery store. Amazingly, that turns out to be the very Jenny in question, and the chase is on. The older man is Houston Meyers, a decorated Marine veteran. Turns out, he found Jenny while looking for paid sex but was immediately so struck by her beauty and vulnerability that he became her fierce protector. We are talking here about sex trafficking—Jenny was raised in Mexico but lured back to El Paso—and that is where attorney Amanda Moore and her henchman, Larry Henderson, come in. They are, in fact, sex traffickers. As we follow the hunt, there are the obligatory violent and nail-biting scenes. Ferrendelli is a competent if not an original writer, and Sam is a likable character/narrator. Several events are mentioned that one assumes took place in earlier books in the series. We learn a lot about sex trafficking and police procedures (Ferrendelli is an experienced journalist). Does it strain credulity the way Jenny is discovered? Let the reader decide. Moore is a despicable villain and is the one character without much nuance. Houston Meyers deserves mention as a very interesting and admirable character, as is Wilson Cole Jr., the wise owner of the Grandview Perspective. Typos don’t overly distract.
A tense, high-stakes read with a layered cast.Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2022
ISBN: 979-8-7981-1552-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Independently Published
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Whimsy meets woodsy.
A mystery writer finds solace and murder in rural Oregon.
Mystery writer Tess Harrow is worried about her daughter, Gertrude. The usually resilient 14-year-old is stung by her father’s utter silence since his divorce from Tess. Fortunately, Tess has just the answer: She’ll take the feisty teen to an isolated cabin in the woods, far from Seattle coffee shops, the internet, or running water. Gertie’s reaction is predictable, but nothing else is. Shortly after their arrival, they hear a sudden boom, and water, fish, and body parts rain down from the sky. When he finally answers their distress call, Sheriff Victor Boyd tells them it’s probably “the Peabody boys.” Sure enough, Adam and Zach have been blast fishing with dynamite again, only this time, somebody stashed a corpse in the lake before their first kaboom. Boyd’s deputy Carl, who’s detailed to keep watch on Tess’ cabin, disappears, but Ivy, his female counterpart, is unfazed. What she wants most of all is for Tess to read the 1,000-page science-fiction adventure she’s written and shop it to her agent. In the meantime, Tess is fascinated with Boyd, a dead ringer for her own franchise hero, Detective Gonzales. If she can only tag along after Boyd while he’s trying to crack the case, she figures that her next novel, Fury in the Forest, will practically write itself. Boyd wants Tess dogging him about as much as he wants eczema, but eventually the two make their peace with the help of hipster librarian Nicki Nickerson, the third Peabody triplet, a man in a Bigfoot costume, and a roving flock of toucans.
Whimsy meets woodsy.Pub Date: May 24, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-72824-860-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Neither the characters nor the mystery makes nearly as much of an impression as the setting and the cuisine.
More accurately, Four Murders Most French, since none of the homicides entangling Julia Child’s circle in postwar Paris seems any more Gallic than the others.
Joining Julia at a tasting during a monthly meeting of her wine club at L’École du Cordon Bleu, her neighbor, friend, and amanuensis Tabitha Knight is on hand to watch Chef Richard Beauchêne taste his very last wine, an 1893 Volnay Clos de la Rougeotte that he samples just before keeling over. Cyanide, thinks Tabitha, whose determination to stay away from anymore murders is on a collision course with her sense that she’s channeling Agatha Christie. Although Inspecteur Étienne Merveille wholeheartedly endorses her reluctance to get involved, she’s left with little choice after she recognizes Louis Loyer at another event as the chef who was arguing with Beauchêne on the evening of his last libation only moments before Loyer uncorks an 1871 Sauternes that turns out to be his last round as well. Assuming that the two poisonings (more will follow) can’t be a coincidence, Tabitha wonders if it’s a coincidence that she’s been on the scene for both of them and begins to make a cautious list of other people who were present for both deaths. Considering that she’s not much more interested in the suspects than her author, Tabitha does a highly effective job of identifying the culprit and tipping her hand in a way that forces her once again to employ her Swiss Army knife to rescue herself from certain death.
Neither the characters nor the mystery makes nearly as much of an impression as the setting and the cuisine.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9781496739629
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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